McCurdy: Still cheering on the Detroit Lions

By Travis McCurdy

Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, November 22, 2009

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McCurdy: Still cheering on the Detroit Lions

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Welcome to my blog for the Midland Daily News! My name is Travis McCurdy and I work in the athletic department at Northwood University as the Sport Information Director. I’m the person who is doing the stats at all of the games and updating our website: http://timberwolves.gonorthwood.com. I also serve as the host of Northwood Football Weekly and Northwood Basketball Weekly on ESPN 100.9 FM and do the play-by-play for Northwood basketball and WMPX AM-1490.

I will almost certainly stick to sports in this space, because it is something I consider myself to be well versed in. I’m sure the majority of these posts will be about the teams at Northwood University, but today I’m going to talk about a topic that has been beaten into the ground: the Detroit Lions.

As a lifelong fan of all four major Detroit professional teams, the last six years have been special. The Red Wings have continued one of the greatest stretches in the history of sports, the Pistons were one of the elite teams in the NBA and the Tigers should have won the World Series in 2006. So if someone told me in 2003 that three of the four Detroit teams would achieve this level of success, I would have taken it a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, the Lions' ineptitude will probably be the thing that stands out from this stretch. And I’m a very positive person. But the level of stink from the Lions is extremely high.

And this obviously isn’t the first time that the Lions have been terrible. Pro football was probably the last sport I really got into as a kid in the ’80s… largely because Barry Sanders had not arrived in Detroit. I can remember getting a wood burning kit for Christmas one year and making myself a pencil case for school with my four favorite Detroit teams on it: the Tigers, the Red Wings, the Pistons … and the Detroit Drive of the Arena Football League. I knew as much about the Drive as I did about the Lions, which was not much. But the Drive were winning Arena League championships and the Lions were terrible.

But then the 1991 season came around. I was 14 when the Lions reached the NFC Championship game against the Washington Redskins. And things like “hope” and “bright future” were thrown around about the Lions. They were young, talented and had opened the playoffs by beating a team that appeared to have a similar bright future in the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys went on to become of the best teams in NFL History and the “Team of the ’90s.” The Lions went on to become a bad punch line for Jay Leno.

There have been good things that have happened for the Lions since then, but almost all of them revolved around Sanders. The lone exception to this came a couple of years ago when Detroit hosted Denver. I was at the game with my friend, Northwood Women’s Basketball Coach Jeff Curtis. The Lions routed Denver 44-7, thanks largely to a great performance by defensive lineman Shaun Rogers. The Lions were 6-2 on the year, but had a very difficult schedule coming up. I can remember walking out of the stadium that day and telling Jeff “No matter what happens the rest of the season, today was a great day to be a Lions fan.”

And it truly was the last day it was a great to be a Lions fan. The win to break the losing streak earlier this season was more relief than elation.

And yet I am conflicted about the future. On one hand, I find myself hopeful. Given the right environment, I think Matthew Stafford can become a star. There are a lot of things to like about him and I am convinced he will not be Joey Harrington Jr. I have seen some flashes of brilliance from fellow rookies Brandon Pettigrew as well as Louis Delmas. And Calvin Johnson is already one of the top receivers in the NFL.

On the other hand, the Lions are like dating an unfaithful girlfriend. Even with the signs of promise from the Lions’ young players, they have hurt me in the past. They have said that the past is the over. We are doing all we can to get better. And then they hurt me again with another painful performance. The reasons for the struggles are numerous, the solutions to the problems are not easy to fix and I don’t know if they have the right people in place to get things done.

Yet I will always cheer for them. My dad has told me that I shouldn’t cheer for them, because they will never be good. I know he’s probably right. But in my mind, I tell myself things like “Someday, when they are good and I have stuck with them through all of this, it will all be worth it.”